tigersnumberone wrote:Its killing me. How the **** did he miss that kick last night? How the ****.

YEP!

Forgive my swearing mods. Im pretty frustrated.

Last year goal kicking cost us against the bulldogs in round 6, the broncos in round 7 or 8, and the rabbitohs as well. Im sure there are more games than that as well - we were lucky he landed a sideline conversion against the knights out of nowhere too, to win a game at campbelltown (in which he had kicked out on the full 3 times as well).

6 more points last year would have seen us finish in the top 4!

We cant sit back and watch it happen again.

Honestly, who can step up? No one. We are stuck with Benji kicking. I love him to death, but he is not up to it.

Does he put a few over after a session when he's mostly fatigue recovered? I'm only guessing here but in match conditions when he is tired, he doesn't really look likely at all....in fact even the ones that do go over look fairly dusty.

If he isnt doing it already, maybe they need to incorporate his kicking practice into the fitness sessions

Imo someone else should be kicking next week. Given his form before friday night and the terrible miss on the Tuqiri conversion, i would've hoped that had their been more conversions ensuing that someone else would've taken over. As far as i'm concerned friday night was the final straw. Unless significant improvement occurs in practice he should be off limits.

There is also the issue of for and against. If through the season you miss 10 kicks from close range (like Friday night) thats 20 points you dont have when trying to get an advantage over the teams we are equal with in the final rounds.

Difference between 4th and 7th at this early stage of the year, if we keep kicking at that percentage it will not only cost us a few games but our F&A as well will suffer and in a close comp you cant afford to throw points away. I agree with others that kicking certainly didnt cost us the game on Friday night but it did cost us any chance of getting back into the game thats for sure!

I can see the thinking in Benji - he wants to be the next Hasem, and he wants to translate his creativity on the field to between the posts - but realistically, he is an instinct player, not one to be coached. It is bleeding obvious that ever since JT has started coaching Benj, he has been kicking terrible.

I'm much the same, I play fullback and have a style very similar to Benji, I practiced long and hard to goal kick but in the end, I realised my brain is too creative for goal-kicking, my element of trying and risking different techniques 'skips' into action spontaneously and stuffs up my rhythm during the kick - needless to say I handed the duty to someone else

innsaneink wrote:Wit h the strike rate hes kicking at it wont be long before it actually does cost us 2 comp points

Thats right.

I feel that we shouldv"e signed a recognized kicker 1st grader and its our only real weakness.

Now it seems that Sheens dosen"t want to try to use a recognised kicker outside our top 10-12 players because he feels if he kicks well it will complicate selection issues forcing him to include a player in th 13 he didn"t originally want.

I can see the thinking in Benji - he wants to be the next Hasem, and he wants to translate his creativity on the field to between the posts - but realistically, he is an instinct player, not one to be coached. It is bleeding obvious that ever since JT has started coaching Benj, he has been kicking terrible.

I'm much the same, I play fullback and have a style very similar to Benji, I practiced long and hard to goal kick but in the end, I realised my brain is too creative for goal-kicking, my element of trying and risking different techniques 'skips' into action spontaneously and stuffs up my rhythm during the kick - needless to say I handed the duty to someone else

I'm glad to have signed Benji to a long term deal but if both he and Sheens can't see that his goal kicking is a problem then we could be in for a long few years. We missed the finals last year due in part to poor goal kicking and would hate to see the great start to this season wasted because of a few wayward kicks.

Agree with the F/A arguments as well. This comp seems very even this year (maybe more that last year) and F/A will determine the difference between 5th and 10th IMO.

Cam Smith missed a simple one last night and it cost his team. I've never seen him look so ashamed.

Benji hasn't cost us a game yet, but the way he is kicking he definatley will.

Alot of goal kickers have periods where they just cant get it right and then get back to basics and find form again. I'd imagine this is what Sheens is banking on, but in the meantime Taylor has only had an adverse effect on Benji's goal kicking.

Do you really need a kicking coach? It sounds like over-complicating things to me. I dont mind the idea of a few sessions with past players or the Graham Arnolds of the world throughout the year, but just get back to basics imo.

If I was Sheens I'd get rid of Taylor and tell benji to go back to his own original style. He used to hit them very differently, long and high. Now they are low stabbing kicks. Looks like he is trying to hard to do what Taylor is coaching him. Give him another week or two but he's gotta be on his last legs.

Surely Robert Lui can kick goals. I know it was Mullaney in the NYC but maybe Lui is an option on his return.

Should we rely on goals to win games? In the same way as we shouldn't rely on penalties or the bounce of the ball to win, probably not - but these things do determine outcomes. The difference is goal conversion is, to a large degree, in the team's control. To say it doesn't matter because it hasn't yet lost us a game is flawed logic.

We should be converting at a higher rate. If Benji can't improve his success rate, he shouldn't be doing it.

I endorse Tims decision to use Benji as goal kicker until someone better comes along. Its unfortunate that he's out of form with the boot ...... but he may come good ....... hopefully sooner rather than later.